Page:The Incas of Peru.djvu/197

Rh thus forming a clan composed of several ayllus or families. Then several clans united and became a powerful tribe with an hereditary chief. Finally there arose great confederations like those of the Incas, the Chancas, and the Collas; ending, after fierce and prolonged wars, in the supremacy of the Incas.

The Incas respected the organisations they found among the people who came under their rule, and did not disturb or alter the social institutions of the numerous tribes they conquered. Their statesmanship consisted in systematising the institutions which had existed from remote antiquity, and in adapting them to the requirements of a great empire.

Under the Incas the ayllu became a pachaca (100 families), over which was placed a Llacta-camayoc or village officer, whose duty it was to divide the marca annually into topus, three being assigned to each puric or head of a family, sufficient for the maintenance of himself and his people, and for the payment of tribute to the state and to religion; one third to each.

The puric was responsible for the maintenance of his family connections, who were divided into ten classes, with their women:

1. Puñuc rucu (old man sleeping), sixty years and upwards. 2. Chaupi rucu ('half old'), fifty to sixty years. Doing light work. 3. Puric (able-bodied), twenty-five to fifty. Tribute payer and head of the family. 3em